Spark and Perl go looking
A little cloud of stars!
How many?
Six. No, seven. No — six.
I see seven.
People can see a different number of stars, so everybody can be right.
That cannot be right.
It is your eyes, not the stars.
And they really are together — all born out of one cloud.
Yes.
In winter it is up for most of the night.
You can see this from anywhere in the world.
Where to find the Pleiades, and when
Where the Earth is clear, it climbs high in the sky. The darker it gets, the lower it stays. Where it is black, it never comes up. No shading at all: it does not matter where you live.
What do I need to see the Pleiades?
You can see it with just your eyes.
Count them from your garden, then count again somewhere darker. The number goes up.
Binoculars with 10× magnification show it, if you rest them on a fence or a wall.
A 150 mm telescope is what shows it properly. This picture is about 25× — which is what that telescope gives on a good night.
It is so wide that a telescope shows one piece of it at a time — binoculars hold the whole thing at once.
Space
Eyes, binoculars, or telescope?
Read on
Go and look